The Linux world's very own version of Paul Thurrot, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, lists 5 things Linux can learn from... Microsoft. "Linux does a lot of things right - open-source, security, reliability - but it's far from perfect. In fact, Linux and its vendors could stand to learn a few things from Microsoft. Yes, Microsoft. Like what? Here's my list of the top five things that Linux could learn from Microsoft." Next thing you'll know we'll have Apple switching to Intel and... Oh, wait.

I dont know about others, but I personally find lost constantly when trying to figure out how to do stuff. the OS-Level APIs are redundant, unicode/non unicode interfaces are mixed up, and the overall low level functions are not docummented or clear enough.

2- The look is "somewhat" the same (although not always), but widgets are different depending on the app and not always behave similar. I think even if there is KDE/Gnome, at least all KDE apps are used the same way, and most gnome ones too. Every microsoft app is different.

3- Common format, What is to learn about this?

4,5 - Dont think I can comment on this, just note that even if hardware support is not perfect, nothing avoids you to sell OEM computers that come with fully supported linux-compatible hardware